I’m not one of those rabid Johnny Depp fans, but I loved his performances in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” (the first one; in the rest, he became a cartoon), “Chocolat,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and others. He’s had a long career for someone who’s hardly ancient, and if you ask me, most of his films have been awful. His collaborations with Tim Burton (“Sweeney Todd,” “Sleepy Hollow,” “Edward Scissorhands”) were way too over the top for me, and his high-profile box office duds (“The Lone Ranger,” “Dark Shadows,” “The Tourist”) made me wonder if he was losing his talent or just needed a new agent to help him choose better projects.

Now he’s being called the “Comeback Kid” and an Oscar contender for his star turn as Boston gangster Whitey Bulger in “Black Mass.” It’s a solidly commercial film – nothing art house here – that focuses on Bulger’s criminal exploits and cozy relationship with the FBI. Whitey, like many a hardened movie gangster, kills, orders his underlings to kill, but is nice to his mother and brother and helps little old ladies across the street. There’s a lot of blood splattered on car windows, in other words.

What’s different about “Black Mass” (different from the Scorsese movies, for example) is it’s less operatic. Based on a book by two Boston Globe investigative reporters, it tells Bulger’s story in both a dramatic and almost documentary style, which I liked. The violence, while necessary, isn’t the hide-your-eyes kind, and the actors all do great work here. (And this is an actor’s movie; the female parts are window dressing.)

Depp adopts a raspy growl of a voice, as if he’s led a hard life with lots of cigarettes. The makeup that ages him is heavy and distracting, but his icy blue eyes signal his criminality, as well as the dead front tooth that, even on those few occasions when he smiles or laughs, says, “I’ll whack you if you look at me wrong.” He’s completely believable as this guy from start to finish.

I don’t see “Black Mass” as a Best Picture choice – it’s not of that caliber – but I’ll be stunned if Depp is overlooked in the Best Actor category. He’s back for sure.

I know, I know. I could have posted a pic of late summer tomatoes, which have been luscious here in CT. Or corn on the cob, fish on the grill, a lobster roll or an ice cream cone. Instead, I gave you a Cobb salad. Big deal, you think. But it’s not just any Cobb. The one above was a creation of one of my new favorite places, Kingsley Tavern in Kent. It’s made of really fresh romaine, avocado, blue cheese, tomatoes, hard-boiled egg, celery, chicken and – drum roll – the crispiest, most delicious bacon I’ve ever tasted, all dressed in a light, tangy vinaigrette. I craved a salad on a hot steamy night recently, and Kingsley’s Cobb delivered.

In addition to sports on TV, classic movies on TCM and non-stop news on CNN (it was the summer of Trump, after all), I belatedly discovered Weeds and binge watched the Showtime series with abandon. What great writing, not to mention the performances by Mary-Louise Parker and Elizabeth Perkins. I also went back and re-watched The Affair, also on Showtime, in anticipation of the first episode of Season 2 on October 4th.

I only went to a handful of movies in the theaters this summer, and the few I saw didn’t come close to making a favorites list. “Love and Mercy,” the Beach Boys movie that garnered mostly good reviews, was long and meandering, and though Paul Dano was great and the inside-the-studio stuff was interesting, I was less than enthralled. “Trainwreck,” which I expected to adore because of the hilarious Amy Schumer, wasn’t funny. I don’t know how else to say it. I sat there waiting to laugh and didn’t. And “Ricki and the Flash” was fun in the way it’s always fun to watch Meryl Streep do her thing, but was otherwise forgettable. I can’t wait for the big Oscar-y movies to open. On my must-see list are “Grandma” with Lily Tomlin, Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s “Steve Jobs,” “Black Mass,” the Whitey Bulger story starring Johnny Depp and “Carol” with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, to name a few.